“Picking your set list is really important. You want to make sure everything you do is catered to the fans,” she said before her LP Field performance Thursday night.

Swift talked about other highlights such as touring in Australia, which will happen later this year, as well as performing with the Rolling Stones earlier this week. She said a rehearsal with the band even involved some dancing, waltz-style.

“We ended up incorporating a twirl into the performance in homage to the rehearsal we had that day,” she said.

It took Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s band, The Black Keys, 10 long years — much of it either in the recording studio or logging tour miles in a van — to make it to the Grammy Awards for the first time in 2011.

That still wasn’t enough time to prepare either of them for the glitzy experience.

“We felt like when you dress up little kids for church, how uncomfortable they look in the clothes,” Auerbach, the duo’s singer and guitarist, recalls with a laugh. “That’s sort of how we felt on the red carpet.”

As the blues-rock duo returns to the Grammys Sunday as performers and five-time nominees, they’ve had two more years to grow into their new roles — not only as one of the biggest modern rock acts in the world, but also as Nashvillians.

Auerbach and Carney moved to Music City from their hometown of Akron, Ohio, at the end of 2010, just as their sixth album, “Brothers,” was proving to be a breakthrough. The disc earned them three Grammys and was certified platinum, as was the 2011 follow-up, “El Camino,” which is up for album of the year at Sunday’s show.

“We drove from Lubbock (Texas). Sonny was on that trip, too. We carried a bass that belonged to Lubbock High School on top of the car, but when it rained, you had to stick it inside, along with all of us and my set of drums.”

It was, he assures, “100 percent fun.”

Fun is a high priority for Allison. He’s had a lot of it and doesn’t intend to stop anytime soon.

When he was younger, he had fun by co-writing “Peggy Sue” and “That’ll Be the Day,” by playing what turned out to be some of the most memorable drum parts in rock ’n’ roll history, and by backing Holly on package tours that featured Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers and other folks of whom you may well have heard.

Now, at 72, he has fun playing the occasional gig with the Crickets and, more than occasionally, riding around on a motorcycle or hanging around his Middle Tennessee property, where friends stop by in the afternoons to sit on buckets that happen to work just great as barstools.

Bobby Keys, left, has spent his share of time onstage with Ronnie Wood and the Rolling Stones. Keys’ new book, "Every Night’s a Saturday Night," details his colorful career (photo: submitted, Marty Temme)

He’ll tell you the names of his saxophones, and he’ll tell you Mexican jails are not fun. He’ll tell you that Yoko Ono isn’t wild about people who drink and cuss and strip naked and holler.

He’ll also tell you “You’re So Vain” was about Mick Jagger, and that B.B. King is an absolute prince, and that Bonnie Bramlett’s version of “Piece of My Heart” blew Janis Joplin’s away. He’ll tell you about how J.I. Allison, who will soon join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Crickets, is a super-nice guy.

He’ll tell you what it’s like to stand onstage with the Rolling Stones, and what it’s like to be Keith Richards’ running buddy (hint: way more fun than a Mexican jail).

He’ll tell you a bunch of stuff. Just don’t ask about the time he and Richards threw a television set out of a hotel room in 1972.

“If there’s one moment I could take back it would be that moment of throwing the damn television set out the window because, of all the music, of all the solos, of all the records I have played on, out of everything I’ve done in my life that had to do with rock ’n’ roll, that plummeting television set seems to be the most ingrained picture in people’s mind of what it is I do,” Keys writes in his new autobiography, the aptly titled Every Night’s a Saturday Night: The Rock ’N’ Roll Life of Legendary Sax Man Bobby Keys.

Doyle Davis, co-owner of Grimey’s New and Preloved Music, says people who stumble upon his Nashville record store ask that question all the time. On Saturday, April 16, four Nashville record stores aim to provide the answer as they take part in the fourth annual Record Store Day, which celebrates more than 700 independent record stores operating in the U.S. with in-store concerts, sales and limited-edition music releases.

“In the age of digital downloads, it’s good to remind people that we still exist,” says John Moore, who runs the Groove in East Nashville with Louis Charette. “There are still places you can come to, meet people that are like-minded, and find things that you can’t get when you’re just searching around (online).”

What’s proven to one of the greatest strengths of record stores in the iTunes era: a sense of community. Many of the Nashville stores’ annual celebrations could be described as a cross between a block party and a mini music festival.Continue reading →

A year of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions never passes without thousands of fans invoking the name of Rush, the Canadian prog-rock trio that has been snubbed by the organization for all 12 years they’ve been eligible.

“I like to consider us the world’s most popular cult band,” frontman Geddy Lee says in the band’s 2010 documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage.

The film examines Rush’s unique position in rock lore: Despite being consistently dismissed by critics and other music authorities, they rank third behind the Beatles and Stones in consecutive gold or platinum albums, and remain arena headliners 40 years into their career.

Rush’s fans and detractors have spent those most of these 40 years scratching their heads at one another. On one hand, Rush’s left-brained approach and total lack of danger make them the antithesis of a “cool” rock and roll band. But the people that pack into Bridgestone Arena on Sunday, April 3 aren’t looking for cool — they’re coming to hear Lee hit the high notes on “Tom Sawyer,” and to see drum hero Neil Peart let loose on his panoramic monster of a drumkit. And Rush didn’t keep these legions of fans by not delivering the goods.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, and Bridgestone Arena is located at 501 Broadway (770-7825). Tickets are $46, $66 and $91.

Friday morning, Lambert stood onstage at Staples Center, rehearsing “The House That Built Me,” which is one of two Nashville-penned singles nominated for song of the year at the 53rd Grammy Awards, set to take place at 7 tonight (Sunday, Feb. 13). As she sang her song again and again, she surveyed a scene that included floor seats adorned with photographs of extraordinarily famous people. Tonight, those pictures will be replaced by the actual famous people.

“Yeah, it turns out Mick Jagger is going to be sitting directly in front of me when I’m on the show,” said Lambert, who’ll be making her first Grammy performance. “I mean, the room is nerve-racking enough because of the amazing talent, not to mention the millions of people watching.”

Last year, Nielsen estimated Grammy viewership of the CBS telecast at 26 million people worldwide. This year, that figure could rise with much-anticipated performances from legendary figures such as Jagger and Bob Dylan as well as contemporary superstars such as Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. And anyone who does tune in will see plenty of Nashville faces.Continue reading →